The Champions - Overview and Premise

Overview and Premise

The series features Craig Stirling, Sharron Macready and Richard Barrett as agents for a United Nations law enforcement organization called "Nemesis", based in Geneva. The three have different backgrounds: Barrett is a code breaker, Stirling a pilot, and Macready a recently widowed scientist and doctor.

During their first mission as a team, their plane crashes in the Himalayas. They are rescued by an advanced civilization living secretly in the mountains, who save their lives, granting them perfected human abilities, including powers to communicate with one another over distances by ESP (telepathy), and to foresee events (precognition), enhanced five senses and intellect, and physical abilities to the fullest extent of human capabilities.

Many stories feature unusual villains, such as fascist regimes from unspecified South American countries, Nazis (a common theme of ITC 1960s and '70s TV, in part due to both the domestic audience and writers having been the "War generation") or the Chinese. The villains' schemes often threaten world peace – Nemesis' brief is international, so the agents deal with threats transcending national interests. The main characters have to learn the use of their new powers as they go along, keeping what they discover secret from friends and foe alike. Each episode begins with a post-title sequence vignette in which one of The Champions demonstrates exceptional mental or physical abilities, often astonishing or humiliating others. In one example Stirling participates in a sharpshooting contest. In another, laughing hoodlums block in Macready's car, which she physically pulls out of the parking space one-handed. Ironically, the narration during these often public demonstrations usually mentions the need to keep the powers a secret.

The only other series regular is the Champions' boss, Tremayne. He does not know that his agents have special abilities, although he does ask innocent questions about just how on their missions they managed to carry out certain tasks about which their reports were vague.